Photo by Steven Noreyko

This high-speed photo is unusual because it wasn’t taken in the dark. While it is an homage to Doc Edgerton, unlike Doc, Steven was able to take this picture in a well-lit room. Usually high speed photographs are taken by triggering a strobe with the camera set to a long exposure time. Instead, Steven was able to capture the moment by electronically triggering the camera shutter. Here is Steven’s description of his setup:

Equipment:

• Nikon D200 camera with 60mm Micro lens
• 10-pin to 2-pin remote cable adapter (MC-25) and a custom Nikon 2-pin to 1/8 inch phono cable (same as Pocket Wizard adapter for remote firing camera)
• 1 Pocket Wizard Plus reciever
• 1 Pocket Wizard Plus Transmitter
• Nikon SB-800 strobe on manual
• Quaketronics FlashKit Trigger
• Laser Pointer

The laser pointer was set with a clamp above the drop surface with the FlashKit trigger opposite, with the laser pointing directly into the photosensor (”eye”) of the trigger. The trigger was cabled to the Pocket Wizard Plus transmitter.

The camera is mounted on a tripod, pre-focused based on a test drop. The SB-800 strobe is hard wired to the camera using a PC sync-cord and set off to the frame on a stand. The remote trigger cable is connected between the camera and the Pocket Wizard receiver. You can and use a hard cable connection from the trigger to the camera if you don’t have Pocket Wizards. The flash output was metered manually with a flash meter. It’s set pretty low on the strobe - perhaps 1/16th of full power.

The milk is being dropped using a rube-goldberg setup with a small piece of rubber tubing, a stand and a clamp. I didn’t have a proper eye-dropper in the house at the time.

Since we are triggering the camera instead of the strobe, I was able to work with the lights on (exposure was f/11 @ 1/200 at 100 ISO). A few test drops helped me to place the camera focus point and position the laser. Ideally the milk drop would break the laser beam each time and trigger the camera (although this was not precise since my drop system was not so great). Adjusting the height of the laser from the surface and changing the delay settings on the FlashKit trigger would vary the results of the splash. I don’t have specifics on how high the laser was from the surface or the delay setting on the FlashKit trigger. At that point it was trial and error, and checking the capture on the camera display.

Steven Noreyko is a professional photographer in Austin, TX. His professional site is www.stevennoreyko.com and his photoblog is at www.zoneix.org.

XenonFlashTubes, originally uploaded by Quaketronics Tom.

I tried kalimistuk’s technique for speeding up his strobe light. Kalimistuk modified the UK equivalent of the SnapShotII. He replaced the flash tube with a smaller tube to speed up the flash. I used a Radio Shack 272-1145 Xenon Strobe Tube, which is available for $4.75 from www.radioshack.com. I made some measurements and found that I also got a speedup.

This simple modification sped up my SnapShotII from a flash duration of about 70uS to about 40uS. That is equivalent to a speedup from 1/14,000 of a second to 1/25,000 of a second. The new tube turns off more quickly, which will help reduce the high-speed smearing even more.

The SnapShotII has a clear plastic cover on the end. This cover protects the bulb and probably also acts as a UV filter, blocking out the UV light that a bare xenon strobe tube produces.

The cover comes off easily. The bulb pulls out of a socket at the bottom of the reflector. Unplug the strobe first! After unplugging, wait at least 72 seconds before replacing the tube. This allows enough time for the high-voltage capacitors inside the SnapShotII to discharge to a safe voltage. Replace the cover after changing the flash tube.

The pins for this socket are the same as the pins used in an 8-pin vacuum tube. My junk box has plenty of old tubes, so I sacrificed one to get some pins. I soldered a Radio Shack 272-1145 Xenon Strobe Tube ($4.29 at www.radioshack.com) to three pins. The result is shown in the picture above. The original tube is on the left and my replacement tube is on the right. I plugged the replacement tube into the SnapShotII and measured the optical output with a photodiode and an oscilloscope.

This new tube does gets a hotter than the larger tube in the SnapShotII. This shouldn’t be a problem as long as you don’t run the strobe at too fast a flash repetition rate. At a high flash rate of many flashes per second, the tube may melt the solder joints, or I suppose something could potentially catch fire, which would be very bad! This overheating problem is worse with smaller tubes. In my first attempt I melted a small tube from a disposable camera! Be careful!